Hubble Catalog of Variables

TL;DR

The Hubble Catalog of Variables (HCV) project automates the detection of variable sources in the extensive Hubble Source Catalog, aiming to identify various types of variables with unprecedented depth and accuracy.

Contribution

This work introduces an automated pipeline for identifying variable sources in the Hubble Source Catalog, enabling large-scale variability analysis at unprecedented depth.

Findings

First release of HCV will be available at MAST and ESA archives.

Pipeline corrects systematic effects and removes bad measurements.

Catalog will include variable stars, AGNs, supernovae, and new variable types.

Abstract

The Hubble Catalog of Variables (HCV) project aims to identify the variable sources in the Hubble Source Catalog (HSC), which includes about 92 million objects with over 300 million measurements detected by the WFPC2, ACS and WFC3 cameras on board of the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), by using an automated pipeline containing a set of detection and validation algorithms. All the HSC sources with more than a predefined number of measurements in a single filter/instrument combination are pre-processed to correct systematic effect and to remove the bad measurements. The corrected data are used to compute a number of variability indexes to determine the variability status of each source. The final variable source catalog will contain variables stars, active galactic nuclei (AGNs), supernovae (SNs) or even new types of variables, reaching an unprecedented depth (V$\leq$27 mag). At the end of the project, the first release of the HCV will be available at the Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes (MAST) and the ESA Hubble Science Archives. The HCV pipeline will be deployed at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) so that an updated HCV may be generated following future releases of HSC.